Skills of the independently employed

Thanks to a blog post by Will Richardson, I read Time Magazine's mid-May online articles in The Way We'll Work - the Future of Work. As Will observed, one of the startling numbers is:

(by 2019) 40% of the U.S. workforce ... will rent out its skills. ...

As a part-time "rent-a-speaker/consultant" myself, I started thinking about the special skill sets these independently employed workers need - and how schools might help develop them. Here are some that come to mind:

• Time management
• Bookkeeping skills/money management/financial planning
• Continuous self-reeducation
• Marketing/knowing one's skill values
• Self-evaluation
• Forming peer groups/support systems/personal learning networks
• Balancing work/life pursuits

These skills may not come naturally to many of us educators who are accustomed to having a supervisor, working set hours/days, receiving a regular paycheck and bennies, working with peers in real time, and getting regular evaluations. And it is why, as difficult as may be to get our heads around them, the "dispositions" section of the current AASL Standard for the 21st Century Learner may be its most important part.

As the article warns,

No one is going to pay you just to show up.

And I would add, or do what a machine can do or another person more cheaply, effectively or efficiently.

Think about it. It's my grandsons you're educating out there!

Image from <http://www.coolfunnyshirts.com/Work.html>

The view from the other side of the desk

Today, for the second time in my 33 year professional career, I had to tell somebody that s/he didn't have a job next year.

Like raising children and planning conferences, it's pretty easy to point out the shortcomings of those who perform the task of letting somebody go. Until, that is, one has had to actually do it. Especially since I seem to increasingly regard my co-workers as family. (OK, so I didn't go to Harvard Business School or had Donald Trump as a role model.)

Please save the lion's share of your sympathy for those who lose their jobs. But remember not everyone likes being on the other side of the desk either.

Dark Office VI - Empty Desk Original painting by Bruce Docker

Lessons learned from bicycling revisited

Another lovely weekend in Minnesota and the LWW and I spent a fair chunk of it on our bicycles, riding to Red Wing from Cannon Falls (MN) and back. I thought it time to up-date the "Lessons Learned from Bicycling," a post almost exactly three years ago:

1. It's usually uphill and against the wind. (Murphy's Law of Bicycling)
2. Most big hills that look impossible are usually a series of small hills that are possible.
3. I've never met a hill I couldn't walk up.
4. It's better to shift to a lower gear than to stop altogether.
5. Sometimes it's nice to be able to have equipment to blame things on.
6. You really can't make your own weather.
7. Coasting feels good, but you don't get much exercise doing it.
8. A beer at the end of a long day of riding tastes better than a beer when just sitting around (or at breakfast, I'm guessing).
9. Don't drink at lunch time and expect to enjoy the afternoon.
10. Bike helmets are a sure sign that natural selection is still a force of nature.
11. The five minutes putting air in your tires at the beginning of the day is time well spent.
12. There will always be riders who are faster and slower.
13. Watching as old people zip by you should be encouraging, not discouraging.
14. Too often we quit because our spirit fails, not our legs or lungs.
15. Spouses who dress alike should not expect the rest of us to consider them normal human beings.
16. Too much padding between you and a bike seat is impossible.
17. Before you wear Spandex in public look at your backside in the mirror. Please.
18. The happiest people are the ones who consider life a ride, not a race.
19. The more expensive the gear, the higher the expectations.
20. The 500 calories burnt exercising do not compensate for the 2000 calories from beer drunk celebrating your accomplishment.
21. Everyone can look buxom on a bicycle - guys included.
22. You always feel the headwind, but rarely the tailwind.
23. Most forms of travel involve some degree of discomfort. But keep moving anyway.
24. Cows always have the right of way.

And your observations, fellow bicyclists?

Photo from Ireland 2006 bike trip with University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point.